Indo-European Poetry and Myth

Doom and downfall

On two occasions in the Iliad Zeus makes drops of blood fall from the sky as a
portent of death. The first is to presage the general carnage of the impending
battle (11. 53 f.), the second is to honour his son Sarpedon who is about to be
killed (16. 459). In the same way Indra sends showers of blood at the fall of
Duryodhana (MBh. 9. 57. 48). Similar portents occur elsewhere in the Indian
epics.^113 The motif of a rain of blood appears also with symbolic or meta-
phorical value in the Valkyries’ weaving song preserved in Njáls saga:‘Wide is
the warp for the weapon-play, a cloud of wrath raining blood’; ‘all around are
awful sights, gory clouds gather above’ (Darraðarlióð 1, 9; Edd. min. 58–60).
In an Irish saga druidical divinatory magic before a battle produces a dark
cloud which sheds a rain of blood over the Ulstermen’s camp.^114
When Patroclus’ death is at hand, Apollo gives him a terrific whack on the
back, στρεφεδνηθεν δ οT Zσσε ... τ:ν δ, Eτη φρνα ε<λε,λ3θεν δ, πο
φαδιμα γυ4α,στH δC ταφ.ν, ‘his eyes spun in a whirl... detriment seized
his wits, his bright limbs lost their strength, and he stood dazed’ (Il. 16. 792,
805 f.). Pisani has compared the demise of Dron
̇

a in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata, where,
amid a concerto grosso of portents, the hero’s left eye and arm twitch and
he becomes vimanas-, ‘out of his mind, discomposed’.^115 This disorientation
and paralysis that afflicts the man and lays him wide open to the forces of
destruction is perhaps related to the distortion of perception with which the
gods send awry the man they are set to destroy. The doctrine is familiar in
Greek from post-Homeric texts such as Theognidea 403–6,

the man whom God

is purposely leading astray into great error,

and easily makes him think that what is bad is good,

and that what is worth while is bad,

and Soph. Ant. 622–5. It is paralleled in the Indian epics:

When the gods deal defeat to a person, they first take his mind away, so that he sees
matters wrongly. When destruction is imminent and his mind is beclouded, the
wrong course appears as the right one and cannot be dislodged from his heart. When
his destruction is near, evil takes on the appearance of good, the good appears as evil.
(MBh. 2. 72. 8–10, and similarly 5. 34. 78 f.; cf. Rm. 3. 47. 27)

(^113) Rains of flesh and blood: MBh. 6. 1. 21; 7. 6. 25, 95. 47. Portents including showers of
blood: Rm. 3. 22. 1–15; 6. 26. 21ff., 31. 3ff., 41. 30ff.
(^114) The Siege of Druim Damgaire 114 f., ed. M. L. Sjoestedt, RC 43 (1926), 108 f. Cf. also
H. R. E. Davidson in H. R. E. Davidson–W. M. S. Russell (edd.), The Folklore of Ghosts (Ipswich
1981), 157 f.
(^115) MBh. 7. 192. 17–21; V. Pisani, ZDMG 103 (1953), 130 f. = Schmitt (1968), 159 f.
488 12. Arms and the Man